Great stars, a generally good print, good soundtrackâ€”but I found this one disappointing. Itâ€™s told entirely in flashbacks as Irene Dunne plays records from the â€œAlbum of a Happy Marriageâ€ as sheâ€™s about to walk out the door. Seems Grant, a reporter, meets her while sheâ€™s working in a music store, romances her, gets sent to Japan and marries her just before leaving. She shows up in Japan, pregnant, and theyâ€™re happy. He gets a (modest) inheritance and decides to blow the job. And a huge earthquake hits, taking away the baby and her ability to have others. So they look into adoptionâ€”while heâ€™s put his inheritance into a failing weekly paper in a small town. With the help of an adoption-agency person, they do find a baby girlâ€”and somehow manage to keep her, a year later, despite having no source of income. (Thereâ€™s some good domestic comedy along the wayâ€”many parts of this film are quite good.) Everythingâ€™s wonderfulâ€¦until the girl dies suddenly at age six. And the two seem to have nothing to say to each other, which is why sheâ€™s leaving.

Enough plot for you? I was wondering how it would endâ€”and the ending, which I assume to be considered a happy ending, struck me as a bit creepy. I wonâ€™t give it away just in case you might see it, but letâ€™s say that it doesnâ€™t do anything to reassure me that these two have a fundamentally sound marriage. Oh, thereâ€™s an interesting third character, Applejack (played by Edgar Buchanan), whoâ€™s known them all alongâ€”and who somehow manages to stay around the little town (he was hired as press manager and troubleshooter) even though the newspaperâ€™s gone under. He does a fine job (hey, heâ€™s Edgar Buchanan), as do all the actors. I just found the movie more depressing than uplifting and the ending odd at best. Iâ€™ll give it $1.25.

This oneâ€™s unusualâ€”a combination of noir and comedy wrapped up in a tightly-made hour. Basically, you have the forest ranger who disobeys orders to save his horsesâ€”and shortly thereafter gets promoted, which means he has the money to pursue his old girlfriend. Who has since gotten marriedâ€¦to a smuggler (Regis Toomey), who shortly thereafter kills two (or three) people and goes on the lam. The rest has to do with hideouts, psychology, the whole thing. Meanwhile, thereâ€™s another ranger whoâ€™s basically a funny sidekick (with a wife in the military, in Africaâ€”this is set in WWII).

Itâ€™s well-written, well acted and moves nicely. I really have no particular criticism of this flick; itâ€™s quite good. The value is based on its short running timeâ€”but even so it gets $1.25.

[Note: This movie also appears in the Classic Musicals set, and this review was done for that copy. The price has been adjusted downward since I no longer allow for more than $1.25 for a one-hour movie.] The plot: Tom Fordâ€™s making a movie with Gene Autry as his stuntman. Ford goes on vacation (and to hide out from $10,000 gambling debts) and the studio publicist says heâ€™s needed at the Texas Worldâ€™s Fair in Dallas (where most of this was filmed).

Solution? Have Gene Autry don a fake mustache and impersonate Tom Ford. But Ford doesnâ€™t singâ€”and thatâ€™s Autryâ€™s big thing. Lots of music, lots of action with the gangster (who decides to blackmail the studio about the Autry-as-Ford thing, which doesnâ€™t work well because the studio loves having a singing cowboy). Autry wasnâ€™t that hot as an actor at the time, but since he was also playing Ford, he acted as well as Ford. More show biz than western, but plenty of musicâ€”and the Beverly Hillbillies were a western singing group a long time before it was a TV show. $1.25.

This sepiatone rerelease of a silent movie (with symphonic, entirely unrelated, soundtrack added) leaves no doubt as to why it was rereleased: â€œThe incomparable Greta Garboâ€ with preliminary title cards about getting to see her wonderful mannerisms, etc.â€”and when Greta (a character in the movie) first appears, the new title card makes sure you know that Greta is Greta Garbo! (Apparently, she wasnâ€™t the star in the original film.)

Take away the supposed star power and itâ€™s a sad little story of postwar Vienna (The Great War, that is). It starts with a downtrodden family in a flatâ€”the daughter comes back without meat (the butcher doesnâ€™t have any) and the father beats her. Then we go upstairs to a flat with a retired civil servant and two daughters (one the fully-grown Greta, the other a subteen girl)â€”and thatâ€™s it for the first family: Theyâ€™re never heard from again. Unless the daughter was in the long line overnight at the butcherâ€™s for promised â€œfrozen beef tomorrowâ€â€”with little enough that most are turned away.

Thereâ€™s almost too much plot to summarize, having to do with the father making incredibly stupid decisions for a retiree (â€œletâ€™s cash out our pension and buy speculative stock on margin!â€), leering bosses, stock manipulation, cabarets, American relief workers and an ending that feels pulled out of nowhere. Maybe itâ€™s the fact that this is somewhere between one-third and one-half of the original film. Maybe itâ€™s bad English titles. Without Garbo, Iâ€™d say itâ€™s a curious little relic, worth maybe $0.75â€”the printâ€™s not too bad. With Garboâ€”well, she may have been incomparable, but in this movie she just seemed to be overacting and her famed beauty mostly seemed to be huge eyes. Iâ€™ll stick with $0.75.

Another silent with unrelated musicâ€”but this oneâ€™s in generally-good black & white, and every significant actor is introduced with a title card show the role and the actorâ€™s name, not just the star. (No credits on this one either.) Oh, and Rudolph Valentino was clearly the star in this oneâ€”and he doesnâ€™t overact and does display a pretty fair amount of magnetism. (Actually, for a silent-movie, he acts fairly subtly.)

The story? If you havenâ€™t heard it by nowâ€¦ Poor boy becomes toreador, marries childhood sweetheart, becomes a Very Big Deal, gets seduced by a society type, and all does not go well. Strong anti-bullfighting messages in the titles and one side character. Still a lot missing (20 to 48 minutes), but whatâ€™s there works reasonably well. Well done for what it is; Iâ€™ll give it $1.00.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Movies and TV.
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2 Responses to “50 Movie Hollywood Legends, Disc 9”

Are you saying that Garbo’s beauty was only her eyes in this film, or period?
That was a very, very early Garbo film. She was just a teenager I think.
She became to be one of the most gorgeous women ever filmed.